The reopening of Dhaka University’s Central Students’ Union (Ducsu) archive with photographs of Muhammad Ali Jinnah has drawn protests, including the smashing and tearing of the images, as well as objections from student organizations and the university administration.
Ducsu Secretary for Liberation War and Democratic Movement Affairs Fatima Tasnim Zuma inaugurated the renovated archive on Sunday alongside VP Shadik Kayem and GS S M Farhad.
Three Jinnah-related images were included: a 1948 photograph of Jinnah declaring Urdu the sole state language of Pakistan at what was then the Racecourse Ground; a photograph from the All India Muslim League’s 1940 Lahore session; and a Dawn newspaper clipping on the 1970 election.
The display included no solo or prominent photograph of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, although a photograph of his sons’ 1974 weddings and three newspaper clippings mentioning him remained.
At around 2pm yesterday, Muhammad Abu Tayab, also known as Habilder, a student of DU’s Urdu Department and the oldest candidate in the last Ducsu election, entered the archive and physically destroyed a solo photograph of Jinnah, tearing it from its frame.
He argued that no one should be allowed to act unilaterally and questioned whether Ducsu’s manifesto had promised to elevate Jinnah as a hero, referring to the memories of 1971 and the Language Movement. Chhatra Federation’s DU unit then handed him a Dawn clipping featuring Jinnah, which Tayab also destroyed.
Chhatra Federation leader Arko Barua defended the act, echoing Zuma’s own justification for displaying the photographs — that she had put them up because she “wanted to” — and said they tore them down for the same reason.
Barua later installed a photograph of Ghulam Azam, the former Jamaat-e-Islami ameer convicted by the International Crimes Tribunal in 2013 of crimes against humanity, in the same archive space.
The photograph, captioned with an account of Azam being beaten by a crowd outside Baitul Mukarram on January 1, 1981, was explicitly presented by Barua as mirroring Zuma’s rationale: if she could add Jinnah’s photograph on personal impulse, he could add Azam’s in the same way.
When approached for comment, Zuma told Dhaka Tribune that the images were similar to those in the “Bangladesh O Bishwo Porichoy” textbook and had been displayed with explanatory captions to document DU’s history from 1905 to 1971, rather than to honor Jinnah.
She said she was not responsible for resolving why other removed “icons of fascism” had not been reinstated, referring the matter to the state level.
Ducsu GS Farhad similarly defended the display, saying that including Jinnah’s Urdu declaration was intended to present his stance against Bangladesh, not celebrate it. Omitting that history, he said, would effectively favor Jinnah.
Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal condemned the display before the physical protest, linking it to a separate controversy over the renaming of Madhur Canteen as “Ishrat Manzil” as evidence that Ducsu was drifting away from the university’s liberation-era spirit towards “love for Pakistan.”
Shortly after the Jinnah photographs were smashed and torn, the university administration, in a statement issued by its Public Relations Office, said several Ducsu actions had violated university law.
These included the unauthorized installation of a “Nirbhik July” memorial near the Ducsu building on without approval from the Syndicate or VC; the display of photographs of Jinnah and former Chhatra Sangha leader Abdul Malek, which the administration described as “incompatible” with the history of the Language Movement and the country’s independence; and the launch of an unauthorized teacher-evaluation website accused of exposing personal data and duplicating an already approved university policy.
VC Dr ABM Obaidul Islam told Dhaka Tribune: “Ducsu acted against university law.”
The Dhaka University authorities warned Ducsu against creating any “parallel” administrative structure, threatening disciplinary action over several recent initiatives that they say violated university rules and bypassed its administrative authority.
In a statement issued yesterday, the university raised objections to an unauthorized July uprising memorial erected by Ducsu, the display of photographs of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Abdul Malek in the Ducsu gallery, and the launch of a separate website for evaluating university teachers.
The authorities said there was “no scope for establishing a dual administration” at the university and that Ducsu, despite being an important representative body of students, must conduct its activities within the university’s existing laws, rules, policies and administrative framework.
“Any attempt to establish a parallel structure or process by bypassing the university’s administrative authority will be strictly resisted,” the statement said.
Members of the University Teachers’ Network visited the Ducsu archive yesterday afternoon after the Jinnah photographs were broken. Among those present were Professor Dr Samina Luthfa of the Department of Sociology and Professor Dr Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan of the Department of International Relations.
In a press release issued around 4pm, Bangladesh Students’ Union (a faction) expressed deep concern and outrage over the display of Jinnah’s photographs at the archive.
Its president Tamzid Haider Chanchol and general secretary Shimul Kumbhkar said: “The people of this land have a long and bloody history of struggle against Pakistani rule and exploitation. When Muhammad Ali Jinnah came to Dhaka in March 1948 and declared Urdu as the sole state language of Pakistan, the student community of this country protested against him right then. That protest later took the shape of a broader national liberation struggle through the Language Movement. On 21 February 1952, the sacrifices of countless people, including Salam, Barkat, Rafiq and Jabbar, created a new history in the struggle to establish the right to language.”
Another faction of the Bangladesh Students’ Union, aligned with the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), held a separate press briefing on the issue.
Mahir Shahriar Reza, president of the faction, urged the university administration to restore all the “glorious aspects that existed before” while removing the “controversial items” that Islami Chhatra Shibir had added to the archive.